When I was 11, I remember riding my bike and speeding down a steep hill on Dos Pueblos Ranch. Filled with youthful recklessness, I sliced through the air, then, within seconds, I went flying and hit the ground. I got up, dusted myself off, and discovered cuts on my knees and elbows, and a sharp pain in my arm, which I later found out I had sprained. My first thought was, “If I could just go back, I’d apply my brakes harder or try to slow down.”
But my thinking was absurd. Instead of wishing away what had happened, I needed to move on — which, in this case, meant walking back up that hill, accepting defeat, and getting some help. Admittedly, with some crying along the way. It wasn’t the first time — or the last time — that the unpredictable place where I grew up forced me through a crucible of life’s lessons.
One of the most transformative lessons, it turns out, has been accepting that this special place has a destiny I can’t control.